


Flags Fly Forever

by AirForceMuffin



Category: RWBY
Genre: (Nora Voice) Nothing Bad EVER Happened, Alternate Universe - Baseball, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Happy, And Penny and Weiss would like to hold them very much, F/F, Frosen Steel Week 2020, In which I use fanfiction to express thinly veiled frustrations about the boston red sox, Meanwhile Blake would just like to forget she was ever in the White Fang, Ruby has two hands, They say chicks dig the long ball and that's never been truer than in this story, Yang has some things to work through but she'll figure it out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:55:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27198124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirForceMuffin/pseuds/AirForceMuffin
Summary: “Ruby, there are only two rules that you need to follow in order to play baseball for the Beacon University Hunters. Number one, don’t date your roommate. Number two, don’t date your teammate. And somehow, you’ve managed to break both of these rules at the same time. I don’t know whether to be concerned or impressed.”On a kinder Remnant with no plots to unleash terror, Ruby Rose is the master of her destiny in college and on the baseball diamond. Or, at least, she hopes she is. Somehow, consistently hitting a little white ball traveling at ninety miles per hour seems easy compared to the other things happening during her freshman year. There are two cute girls in her life, Penny and Weiss, who she desperately wants to ask out. But she has to pick just one, right? Right?A RWBY college baseball AU.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Penny Polendina/Ruby Rose, Penny Polendina/Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee, Penny Polendina/Weiss Schnee, Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee
Comments: 23
Kudos: 58





	Flags Fly Forever

**Author's Note:**

> This is a RWBY college baseball AU! No in-depth knowledge of baseball is required, because the story will have a large focus on character interaction. It takes place in Remnant, but there’s no Grimm, Aura, Dust, or Semblances. There’s still Faunus and the White Fang, though. So you can think of it as a Modern AU, pretty much. Can't believe I got this done in time for Frosen Steel Week.  
> Something to note: Based on how the Beacon school year seems to operate in canon, this is a college that starts in the spring, runs through the summer, and ends in the fall before having a winter vacation instead of a summer vacation. I did that mostly so that the start of the college baseball season could coincide with the start of college.

It was a new chapter of Ruby’s life. She’d unpacked her stuff, hung up her posters on the walls of her dorm room, and received her student ID certifying her as a first-year student at Beacon University. She’d just said a heartfelt goodbye to her father and watched him pull away from the curb to begin the long drive home. However, there were some parts of the past that she couldn’t escape. Namely: Yang.

“Oh, I can’t believe my baby sister’s going to be at college with me! And we’re going to be playing baseball together again! It’ll be just like our little league days!”

Ruby groaned as her sister went in for yet another crushing hug, lifting her off the sidewalk to the point that her toes couldn’t even touch the concrete. “Yang, please… haven’t you done this enough already?” So far today, Yang had spent less time helping her unpack and way more time doing stuff like _this._

“Nope.” Yang returned Ruby to the ground and pulled back, patting her shoulders. “You’re all grown up! I’m so happy for you!” she said, her eyes shining.

“It’s no big deal. Really!” 

“Of course you’d say that.”

They fell silent for a moment as their dad’s station wagon receded into the distance, Taiyang’s arm waving madly out the window and Zwei pawing at the back window—and then the car disappeared around a corner, leaving Ruby and Yang alone in front of the dorm that Ruby had inhabited for all of four hours and eight minutes. 

“Well.” Yang looked down at her watch. “We should probably head over to the field for the team meeting. And you’ve got orientation later on, right?”

“Yep.” Starting college wasn’t the only thing she had to worry about right now. Sometime in the next couple of days, she would be trying out for the Beacon University Hunters, a prestigious and storied baseball team that she had absolutely _no_ chance of joining. Ruby glanced around at the too-similar brick buildings lining the street, suddenly realizing that she’d left the map of campus in her room. “Which way do we go, again? I, um, can’t remember where the field is.”

“Never fear! It’s—” Yang turned and pointed directly at Ruby’s dorm with an exaggerated swing of her arm. “—about two hundred yards thataway.” 

Ruby had to resist the urge to smack her forehead. Oh. Right. She could literally see the baseball field from the window of _her own room._ How could she have forgotten—

She was probably going to get lost at college more than a few times this year. She _still_ couldn’t figure out where the laundry machines were in her _own_ _dorm_ after a half-hour of searching.

“Man,” Yang said, shaking her head as they made their way towards a path going around the building, “I can’t believe they turned this into a _freshman_ dorm. I would’ve given up my right arm to live here my first year. Having the field _right there?_ You forget something in your room, you can just run back and get it, no problem! That would’ve saved my butt a few times. You won’t have to worry about that this year.”

 _“If_ I make the team.” 

Yang waved the correction off with a dismissive snort. “Oh, you’ll make it. Easily.” When Ruby gave her a dubious look, she continued on, her tone growing serious. “Hey. Speaking as someone who’s been playing on this team for two seasons already. We need a good shortstop. Or at least one who can actually... hit the ball. And who fits the bill better than you?”

They’d come around the back of the building and picked up a narrow path leading into a grove of trees by now, and Ruby sighed. “How often do first-years get a spot on the team? I wasn’t even recruited to play—the only reason I’m here is kind of an accident!”

“But you’re still here. And it’s not for lack of skill that they didn’t notice you at first.” Yang poked her in the side. “Isn’t that right, “Miss-I-need-to-focus-on-my-studies-for-the-next-four-years-or-I-won’t-amount-to-anything-ever?”

“Hmph.” Ruby crossed her arms. “So maybe I was worried I wouldn’t have time for baseball _and_ classes. And I’m still not sure if I will.” Majoring in electrical engineering was hard work! And she had big plans! Which required lots of time!

“Trust me, you’ll have time for class _and_ baseball here. I’ve made it work for two years—you will, too!”

“Stop talking like I’ve already made the team!”

Yang held up her hands. “Fine, fine.” And then she gave Ruby a small smile, tilting her head. “You’re excited, aren’t you? I can tell.”

“I—” Ruby opened her mouth to protest, to point out that there was no point in getting excited for something only to be sorely disappointed later, but just then, they emerged from the trees and she forgot what she was going to say as she saw Beacon University’s field laid out before her.

Sure, she’d seen it before, but that had been in the dead of winter beneath a gray sky. Now, under the warm spring sun, the outfield grass positively gleamed, a sheet of close-cut green so brilliant it almost hurt to look at. And the infield was pristine dirt, not a footprint to be seen anywhere, broken only by the bases that appeared at this distance like little white buttons dropped on the ground by a careless child. If Ruby closed her eyes, maybe she could let herself imagine for just one second—standing at the plate, tie game, down to the last out, the pitch coming in, and then the crack of the bat, the ball soaring into a deep blue sky just like the one above them now, and the sound of teammates’ cheers echoing across that immaculate field—

“Yep,” Ruby said, a gigantic grin spreading over her face. “Yep. I’m pretty excited.”

* * *

As it turned out, the “team meeting” was just a bunch of players sitting in the bleachers while the coaches stood in front. She and Yang had made it with time to spare, but it seemed that most of the team was already here. Ruby plunked down on the edge of a row and slid over to make room for Yang—only to accidentally bump the white-haired girl on her left.

“Sorry!” she said hastily, jerking away. “Didn’t mean that!”

The girl whipped her head around, sending her ponytail flying—wow, that was _really_ white hair, that wasn’t something Ruby saw too often—and gave her a suspicious squint. After a few moments, she turned back without a word.

Oh, no. Had Ruby just pissed off a potential teammate within the first thirty seconds of stepping onto the field? This was not—

Her impending anxiety attack was interrupted by the sound of a voice booming through the crackly amplification of a megaphone.

“Greetings, students.” An older, glasses-wearing woman wearing one of Beacon’s instantly recognizable white-and-red uniforms stood before the assembled players. Ah, yes. This had to be Glynda Goodwitch, the one and only manager of the Beacon Hunters, who Ruby had only communicated with through emails up to this point—and who had managed to sound terrifying even through typed words. 

And then a black-haired girl wearing a baseball cap sat down on Yang’s right, and Yang slid over to make room for her, in turn making Ruby realize that she would have to nicely ask the white-haired girl to move over so _Ruby_ could move over, and she wasn’t prepared for this—

She took a deep breath and tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me?”

The girl looked over again, and thankfully, the annoyance from before seemed to have vanished from her expression. “Yes?”

“Could you, um, move over a bit? There’s a little bit of a squeeze right now, and—”

The girl moved over before Ruby dissolved into nervous babbling, and she let out an immense internal sigh of relief. Social interaction, successfully navigated!

“You all will have to sit tight for a bit longer,” Glynda said, still speaking through the megaphone. “It’s not three-o’clock yet, and we’re still waiting for a few players to show up. However, if they’re late, we _will_ start without them. Consider that a warning for everyone concerning tardiness later on.”

Ruby made a mental note to not be late to practice, ever, and glanced around. Beacon University accepted students from all over Vale and all over the _world!_ Which meant that she didn’t know anyone here. That was fine. This was fine. Well, she had to start somewhere, and Yang _had_ advised her to start getting to know her _potential_ teammates as soon as possible, so...

She turned to the white-haired girl and stuck out her hand. “Hey, I’m Ruby!”

The girl looked up at the sound of her voice, and piercing light blue eyes stared into her own. “What?”

“Oh—” Ruby tried to fight down a blush, suddenly regretting all of this. “I, um, was just, introducing myself? Getting names? Your name? If you have one?”

“Weiss.”

She had a name! Well, of course she did. Everyone had a name. Weiss still hadn’t shaken her hand, so Ruby felt the need to press on.

“Nice to meet you! Are you a freshman?”

“Yes. And you?” 

Really, everything about Weiss’s appearance reminded Ruby of wintertime. It was kind of cool. She was half-expecting to shiver despite the warm air. “I’m also a freshman! Maybe we’ll have classes together? I mean, it depends on what your major is, but—

“Public policy and international relations,” Weiss said smoothly. “And you?”

Oh. That was… that had absolutely _nothing_ in common with electrical engineering. “Um… not either of those things.” And Weiss was a _double major?_ Could people do that without, like, dying?

“What position do you play?” she asked, desperation creeping into her voice.

“Second base, for the most part.” 

Ruby brightened. At last, something they could talk about! “Hey, I’m a shortstop! Maybe we’ll be double-play partners!” Wait, no, why was she acting like she was part of the team when she hadn’t even—

Fortunately, the spiraling conversation was rescued by Glynda firing up her megaphone again. “And it’s three-o’clock. We’ll be starting now. And before I say anything else, I’ve got the president of the university here—Professor Ozpin, who would like to say a few words to you all before we do anything else. I’m sure you all know that he’s quite the baseball fan. Professor, you have the stage.”

Ah, here was another recognizable face. And one that was less scary, too—Ruby had only met Ozpin once, but it had been memorable. And he was also the entire reason why Ruby was even on this field right now. It’d all been a really weird whirlwind.

* * *

**_Months prior_ **

Ruby heaved her equipment bag into the trunk of her car with a sigh. The least enjoyable part of any baseball game was always packing up afterward. At least she wasn’t a catcher and didn’t have to deal with the ten different things they had to—

“Hello.”

“GAH!” On instinct, Ruby snatched her baseball bat out of the trunk and spun around, wielding it towards whatever attacker might approach, only to realize that it was just a tall, skinny older man who looked vaguely familiar. 

“Sorry, do I know you?” she said, lowering her bat—but only slightly. 

“My apologies for scaring you. I just wanted to congratulate you on your exemplary performance.”

“Ohhhhh. Thanks.” Ruby suddenly relaxed as a memory clicked into place. She’d seen this man’s smiling face on various promotional materials for Beacon University from the past few months. “You’re the president of Beacon!” she said, tossing her bat into the trunk. “I’ll be going there in the spring! What’s up?”

And immediately she wanted to smack herself. She couldn’t just say _what’s up?_ to the person who had complete control over whether or not she would be receiving academic scholarships! “What brings you out here to… well, here?” She glanced around. Patch was… rural, to put it kindly.

“Well, truth be told, I was scouting out some college-bound players on that high school team you were facing—players who the Hunters will likely face this year. It’s not exactly in my job description, but I do like to help out with the team from time to time.” Ozpin nodded towards the now-empty field. “That girl who you hit the home run off was one of the ones I was scouting.” Suddenly, he was fixing a very intent gaze on Ruby. “Tell me, how did you hit that home run?”

“Oh!” Ruby straightened. “Well, we had a runner on third with one out. Score was tied, so all I had to do to win was hit the ball in the air, right? She had a pretty good sinkerball—I was watching her throwing it, and she likes to throw it early in at-bats, so I was trying not to swing at anything early on because the bottom just drops out of that sinker when it comes in and it’s impossible to make solid contact on it. When she realized I wasn’t biting, she tried a curveball—it’s a pretty good curve; all I could really do was foul it off a couple of times before she got tired of it and just tried to blow me away with a fastball. There was one problem with that.”

“Which was?”

Ruby gave Ozpin a feral smile. “I was looking for a fastball the whole at-bat. I was sitting it dead-red, and as soon as I saw the ball middle-in and juicy, it was _gone.”_

“Hm.” Ozpin was silent for a moment, and then he pulled a small pad out of his pocket and began flipping through it. “Sinker: Looks similar to fastball at first—almost impossible to lay off—fools everyone at least once. Curveball: A killer pitch—lots of movement—will get a lot of swing-and-misses. Fastball: Blows away the competition—nobody can catch up to it.” He closed his pad. “Nobody except you, that is.” 

“Um…?”

“This is my scouting report on that pitcher, who’s a star recruit for Haven University this year.”

“Really? Ruby glanced back at the field. “Wow. I didn’t even know who she was.” 

“You said you’re coming to Beacon?” Ozpin gave her a considering look. “Have you been offered a spot on the team?”

“Not really.” Ruby’s heart sped up. Could Ozpin be implying…?

“Hm.” He paused. “What was your name again?”

“Ruby. Ruby Rose.”

“Ruby… Rose?” Ozpin blinked, and then looked more closely at her. “Is Yang Xiao Long your sister?”

“Yep, she is. She pitches for Beacon already!”

Ozpin chuckled. “Yes, I’m well aware of Miss Xiao Long. She _has_ mentioned your name several times to me. Usually, asking me to put you on the team.”

“Really? That’s… cool.” Ruby felt a sudden urge to melt into the ground. _Yang. What have you been doing? Please don’t embarrass me._

Ozpin continued on before Ruby could start wondering how much her older sister was talking about her at Beacon. “Unfortunately, if I listened to every player who vouched for their sibling’s skills, I’d have a team of about two hundred players. But in this case… I believe that you deserve a tryout.” 

Wait, what?

“Stay tuned. We’ll be in touch with more information.” And with that, he walked off, leaving a very stunned Ruby behind. 

* * *

**_Present day_ **

Glynda clapped her hands, yanking Ruby out of her thoughts. “That’s everything for today. Look over the guidelines that we’ve handed out before practice, which will be tomorrow at nine A.M. sharp.” 

Ruby turned to Weiss to say goodbye, only to see her walking away already.

“Well… see you around!” she said weakly to the girl’s receding back.

Yang stood up, glancing in Weiss’s direction. “Ruby, you do know who you were talking to, right?”

“Um… some girl named Weiss?” Ruby said. “Do you know her?”

Yang stared at her. “That’s Weiss Schnee.”

“She’s your friend?”

“No. She’s a freshman—do you really not know who she is?” Yang shook her head. “The last name isn’t ringing a bell?”

“Nope.”

“Three words. Schnee Oil Corporation.”

“Oh!” Ruby blinked. Yes, she knew _that_ company—how could anyone _not?_ “Is she related to that family?”

“She’s… I’m pretty sure she’s in line to inherit ownership of the entire company. Which means...” Yang looked around before leaning in close to Ruby and whispering. “Weiss is a _legacy.”_

Ruby blinked. “What?” 

“You know. Rich kids coasting into college because their rich and famous parents went there.”

“Oh. Right.”

And the heiress to the Schnee Oil Company? There’s _no_ _way_ that didn’t help her get admitted. I mean—look at the name of this field, for crying out loud!” Yang gestured to their left. They were just passing through the stadium’s main entrance, and proudly spelled out in metal letters on a brick wall to their left was the field’s name—SCHNEE OIL COMPANY STADIUM.

“They literally changed it over the winter. It was Amity Field for all of last year! I _liked_ that name.”

“The best way to get your name on something...” Ruby began, quoting something Dad had told them repeatedly over the years.

“...is to give them a fuckton of money.” Yang finished the thought. “I mean... Weiss Schnee gets admitted. From the looks of it, she’s going to end up as the starting second basewoman or shortstop because one of our middle infielders graduated and she was the only one recruited to replace him. And right around the time she was probably admitted the Schnee company pays a nice hefty sum to Beacon. Which is _supposedly_ to put their name on the stadium. You can probably guess what that is really for, right?”

“And?” Ruby said. “She seems nice! She talked to me!”

“And…” Yang deflated. “There is no _and,_ I guess. She could be someone different who really does deserve a spot on this team. Just... maybe be a little careful until you get to know her better. Because most legacy kids I’ve had the pleasure of knowing turn out to be exact copies of Cardin Winchester—” Her face twisted into a grimace as she said his name, shaking her head. “—and his posse.”

“You don’t have to warn me about _them_ twice.” Ruby had heard Yang’s complaints about Cardin plenty of times last year when she was a sophomore and he was a freshman who, according to her, “thought he was king of the entire fucking college.”

They were going up the elevator to Ruby’s room now, and they passed the ride in short silence. As they got out, Yang spoke again. “Winchester’s gang is the kind of legacies who are exactly what you think of when you think of rich people who never had to work a day in their life to get to where they are. But in a way, they’re _worse_ because they’re on this team, which means they have _just_ enough talent to get them here and convince them somehow that they deserve every little bit of what they’ve gotten, and more.” She paused. “And I guess that’s why I’m worried about Weiss. I just don’t know anything about her yet.”

“Oh.” Ruby shrugged. She could… kind of see where Yang was coming from, a tiny bit? But she hated to form an opinion of anyone without getting to know them. “Well, then we’ll just have to get to know her! Maybe she’s really cool!”

“All right, then. I don’t want you to think I don’t trust you to make your own friends,” Yang added quickly. She gave Ruby a friendly poke on the shoulder before stretching and bringing her arms behind her head. “I guess... sometimes my brain thinks that I need to still try to do everything for you, ha. But I’ll follow your lead here. You know this sort of stuff better than me.”

“Wait.” Ruby blinked. “I do?” 

“Of course. I’m a _terrible_ judge of character. I used to think _Raven_ was a good person.”

Ruby winced. “Yang, you’re not—”

“Aaaand we’re not going to talk about that! Look, here’s your room! Think your roommate’s here yet?” 

Sensing that Yang would shut down any further attempts at that train of thought, Ruby went to punch her keypad—only to pause as she realized she couldn’t remember her stupid code. Thankfully, she’d written it down on her phone.

As she was checking, a vaguely familiar face (she seemed to be seeing those a lot lately) stepped out of the elevator and came down the hall towards them. She came to a stop at the room across the hall from Ruby’s room and gave them both a friendly nod, but it wasn’t until she’d entered and shut the door behind her that Ruby realized who exactly it was: the black-haired girl who’d sat next to Yang at the team meeting. 

“Hey, that girl’s on our team!” Ruby squinted at the paper attached to the door with the names of the room’s inhabitants. “Her name is… Blake?” And then her eyes fell on the other name directly below. “And Weiss is her roommate!”

“Really? Wild. That should be interesting. Wonder if she’s ever had to live with a roommate before.”

“Yang, _I’ve_ never lived with a roommate before.”

“...You’re right,” Yang said after a moment. “Maybe I should be more worried about _you_ reacting poorly to living in close quarters with someone for months on end.”

“And speaking of roommates…” Ruby had finally found her passcode, and she opened her door. “Ooh, she’s here!” 

Her roommate’s side of the room had been bare when she’d moved in, but now the bed had sheets on it, there was a small beanbag chair on the floor, most of the shelves held neatly organized rows of books and items, and the walls had been essentially wallpapered with various decorations.

“At least, she’s been here.” Ruby walked inside, running her eyes over the new decor. Wow. She thought _she’d_ brought a lot of posters, but this was… wait, was that an exploded diagram of a Dreamliner?

“Are they in here, or...?” Yang poked her head into Ruby’s room and blinked. “Well, they definitely exist. Unless they’re a ghost?”

Ruby peered down at some unfamiliar-looking electronics on her roommate’s desk, only to immediately think better of it. Feeling somewhat embarrassed for violating this person’s privacy, she stepped back and flopped down onto her bed. 

“I’m just gonna… lie here for a little bit,” she said. How was this day only half-over?

Yang took the hint. “Alright, then I’ll leave you here. Good luck with the rest of the day. See you at practice tomorrow morning! Don’t sleep late.” 

Ruby nodded. The sound of the door shutting told her Yang had left, and she sighed. They’d gotten up way too early this morning to make the drive up. She really could’ve used some sleep, but instead she reached for her phone and plugged in her headphones. 

She focused on the speckled ceiling as the music began blasting in her ears. Soon, freshman orientation. Forced social interactions that likely wouldn’t result in any sort of meaningful connection. Yay.

And then a freckled face framed by long, flowing bright-red hair popped into Ruby’s vision.

“Salutations! I’m Penny!”

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to note that this is a reboot of something way older. I set out to write a baseball AU back in 2016 after getting into RWBY, but it sputtered out after a few chapters. A lot of things have changed since that original, which I don't recommend checking out. If you’re coming here from the old version of Flags Fly Forever, then things are going to look pretty different here.
> 
> You can follow me on tumblr at https://bionic-jedi.tumblr.com/ where I'll post updates to this story and also post about Frosen Steel and RWBY in general a whole lot!
> 
> Or you can follow me on twitter where I'll do the same! https://twitter.com/bionic_jedi


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